(MENAFN) Kim Jong Un has praised North Korean military leaders for their role in aiding Russia’s war in Ukraine, hailing their actions as a “victory” in operations to seize Ukraine's eastern territory, according to local media on Thursday.

The North Korean leader held a high-level meeting Wednesday with the command staff of the Korean People's Army unit recently returned from operations abroad. The troops had taken part in what Pyongyang claims was a successful military campaign in Russia's Kursk region.

During the gathering, Kim was briefed on the unit’s overseas engagements and "highly appreciated their feats of leading the combat units of our armed forces, which participated in the operations to liberate the Kursk region of the Russian Federation, to victory."

“Our army is now doing what it ought to do and what needs to be done. It will do so in the future too,” Kim stated.

The remarks mark a rare and overt acknowledgment of North Korea’s direct involvement in the ongoing Russia-Ukraine conflict, a development that South Korea’s Unification Ministry said amounts to formal confirmation of North Korean boots on the ground in Russian territory.

This "appears aimed at justifying the deployment and boosting morale," an unnamed official from the ministry told a South Korean news agency.

The official added that this is believed to be the first time North Korea has officially awarded honors to troops engaged in combat operations overseas.

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